School is Back

Well it is unbelievable, but yet another summer is nearly over and it will be September on Monday!  The kids went back to school early this year and Isaac is officially completing his first year of school today.

Here he is on the bus on Monday:

 Our neighbor, Aubrey, also started Kindergarten on Monday.  Here is a shot of the 3 kids waiting for the bus:

 



 Mackenzie started second grade last Wednesday and here is a shot of her waiting that morning for hte bus:

 

And here is one of her getting on.  She has the same bus number and driver as last year: 

 Last weekend my mom and I went to Petoskey, MI together.  We stopped in Gaylord, MI on the way up and went to their Farmer's Market.  Gaylord is a really cute town near Boyne Mountain so the downtown area has an "Alpine" theme.  We started our wine tasting at the Farmer's Market. A new winery called Seasons of the North was doing free tastings at the market.

We then headed further north and tried 3 more wineries: Crooked Vine, Royal Farms, and Harbor Springs Winery.  Mom's favorite was Crooked Vine, because the owners were extremely friendly and informative about how they started the winery, chose the labels, and the grapes that were used for each of the wines.  I am a fan of Harbor Springs Winery because they make an awesome hard cider.  We were originally going to try to do one more tasting at Mackinaw Trail Winery.  Brian and I had tried and liked their wines when we were up north earlier this summer, but we decided we had had enough.  We had a lovely dinner at Palette Bistro:

Then we walked around the McLean and Eakin bookstore and a couple other shops and called it a night.

 

That same weekend Linda and Butch took Mackenzie to Chicago to go to the American Girl store



while Brian and Isaac got to have boy time.  I think that everyone had a great weekend to close out the summer.

 

Just a few more pictures to share since it isn't often that all of the cousins from the Krotzer side get together.  Tina brought the boys up for a visit.  They spent the week in Midland and then came down to Perrysburg on Friday.  Mom, Tina, Brian and I got to spend some time together trying out the Wii Fit and on Saturday we all headed to Columbus and we spen the day at the Cherry Valley Lodge where they have a Coco Key water park.  It was a really pretty lodge and the kids had a blast at the water park.  Micheal, Misty and Lexie actually headed to the water park on Friday so they were there when we got there. 

 

Here is a shot of Nicholas, Mackenzie, Thomas and Isaac on their adventure: 

Lexie joined a little later after she had finished her breakfast and then led the way to the end of the adventure:

 

This weekend we are headed to South Bend for the opening game against Rice. We are going to meet the Sullivan's there for a rockin' tailgate. Go Irish!





Where did July go?

I cannot believe that it is August already.  We had a very eventful July.  We spent July 4th at Mom's cabin.  We set off fireworks of our own on the 4th and watched others set off even bigger fireworks the rest of the weekend.  Michael and Brian talked about putting on an even bigger show next year.  I am not sure what I have gotten myself into and I am sure Mom feels similar.

Brian and my 10th anniversary was on July 10th.  We went to a concert on our anniversary (Train and Gin Blossoms) and then went to Petoskey, MI for the weekend.  Both were fantastic.  We stayed at Stafford's Perry Hotel in Petoskey and I would highly recommend it.  We walked around downtown the first night we were there and found many great shops including an excellent bookstore.  I got a book about Chinese workers and I spent quite a bit of time sitting on the veranda of the hotel reading my book.  I think that I could have happily spent the whole weekend reading on the veranda.  

The next weekend I heard on the radio on the way home from work that Willie Nelson and Alison Kraus & Union Station were playing at the zoo that night and that there were tickets still available.  Brian called his parents when he got home and we left them with the kids (and the chicken and vegetables that I had roasting in the oven) and went to the concert.  We ran into some folks we knew at the concert including our neighbors who also left their kids with the grandparents for the night.  The concert was awesome.  This is now our third concert of the year.  I think that is a record. 

We did manage to get the kids back to the lake the last weekend in July for Lexie's 13th birthday party.  She had a lovely party and despite predictions for rain it was a wonderful day for the party.  I think it is safe to say she will be well clothed when school starts this year and she also has plenty of books to keep her busy for a while.  Aunt Misty got sorbet for Isaac and Brian and I think that everyone that tried it was pleasantly surprised.  Their allergies make everyone's diets more diverse :)

We went back up to the lake this past weekend to celebrate Grandma's birthday.  Again, despite predictions for bad weather we had lovely weather.  However it got pretty chilly at night and the water was pretty cold.  Luis, a co-worker of mine, brought his family up for Saturday afternoon and the kids had fun playing and swimming together.  That morning we were notified that the city of Toledo had put a ban on drinking and bathing in our tap water.  That was pretty interesting information.  Brian called his parents and was told that the stores were sold out of water for quite a ways.  Luis told us he had to get almost to Ann Arbor that morning before they found and open restaurant to get breakfast.  On Sunday they did not lift the ban although they said that healthy adults could take a short shower in the water (um, what?).  So Mom was gracious enough to keep the kids for us and we filled a 10 gallon cooler with water and bought 14 2.5 gallon containers of water at the store to bring back with us in case anyone needed water.  I won't go into tree hugger mode, but basically climate change and pollution from fertilizers is bad and we need to do something soon!

While we were at Grandma's filling up with water, Nero made himself quite comfortable in Grandma's kitchen:

They finally lifted the ban at about 10 am on Monday morning.  So we are back to having safe tap water, I guess. 

Oh, and we pulled Isaac out of daycare and Haley, a former student of Brian's has been watching him when Brian has to go to ONU.  One day they used my leftover fleece to make Ninjago costumes for him and Mackenzie.  Here is a shot of Isaac in his costume:

 

So it has been an eventful summer so far. It is hard to believe we only have 2 weeks left before school starts!